UPDATE: Due to my busy school schedule this year, I’ve decided to tutor only the humanities subjects (English, writing) I don’t get enough of in medical school! I’m a third-year medical student at Stanford School of Medicine; I graduated magna cum laude and with election to Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University. I’m interested in tutoring middle-school, high-school, and college students in a variety of subjects including English, history, languages (Spanish and Mandarin Chinese), math, an…

Clark Z.

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UPDATE: Due to my busy school schedule this year, I’ve decided to tutor only the humanities subjects (English, writing) I don’t get enough of in medical school! I’m a third-year medical student at Stanford School of Medicine; I graduated magna cum laude and with election to Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University. I’m interested in tutoring middle-school, high-school, and college students in a variety of subjects including English, history, languages (Spanish and Mandarin Chinese), math, an…

I scored perfectly on the SAT writing test (with a score of 800) and the AP English composition test (with a score of 5) in high school. I've previously tutored students in writing and for the SAT writing test. My strategy is to teach grammar and writing style, to do practice multiple-choice problems from practice tests, and to go over compositions, including essays from English class, essays in response to practice prompts, and college-application essays, with students.

I’m qualified to tutor English my standardized test scores, grades, extracurriculars, and tutoring experience. I scored perfectly on SAT critical reading and writing sections (800’s) and on my AP English language or composition test (5). I maintained very high GPA’s in both high school and college (about 3.9 without 4.3 A+’s or about 4.1 with 4.3 A+’s). In high school, I was the editor in chief of a magazine and a successful debator in New York City, winning several Manhattan-wide tournaments (to be a successful debator, one has to write good arguments). I have over 400 hours of experience tutoring and over 50 hours of experience tutoring English.

My approach to tutoring English is to develop each of my student’s vocabulary, other interpretive and critical reading skills, and writing skills. To develop the student’s vocabulary, I will typically first assess his or her vocabulary. I do this by two ways. First, I discuss with him or her words from a vocabulary books like the Wordly Wise series of books. This series has books for each grade level, each with several hundred suggested words to be learned during that grade level. My second technique is to administer vocabulary-testing parts of standardized exams like the Secondary School Admission Test (for selective high shcools) and the SAT. These two techniques allow me to accurately assess my student’s current vocabulary level. Afterward, I will select vocabulary books appropriate to my student’s vocabulary level. I will assign to the student a certain number of words and exercises (e.g., write sample sentences with the words or fill in the blanks in pre-made sentences) to learn and do each week. At weekly meetings, I will take some time to clarify the definitions of difficult words and to check some exercises, but I also rely on my student to learn the words by doing daily exercises outside of meetings with me.

I think of reading skills as falling into two types. There are those that are utilized for understanding or thinking critically about a sentence or a paragraph or a passage of several paragraphs on say a standardized test like the SAT. These skills involve appreciating and responding on a word-by-word level to a story or an argument. And there are the skills that are utilized for responding to a much longer piece of writing, like a chapter in an academic book, or a whole book. These skills involve following and keeping notes on a story or an argument on a much higher level. The former type of skills are foundational for developing the latter type of skills. However, the latter type of skills in combination with the former type of skills is really what real life requires (e.g., working in a company and having to read lots of reports). It’s unfortunate that the latter type of skills can’t be directly tested on standardized tests. I develop the former type of reading skills (passage level and lower) by doing reading-comprehension passages of an appropriate level for the student. I take the passages from books for tests like the SSAT and the SAT. I’m familiar with many of these books and so can find passages of appropriate difficulty for my student. To develop reading skills on the level of articles and books, I will help my student with research projects like history papers. I will help my student find sources like books and journal articles, evaluate them, read them, and take notes on them, as well as help him or her make schedules and plans for the whole process.

Just as I think there are two types of writing skills, I think there are two types of writing skills. First, there are writing skills on the level of the sentence, the paragraph, and the essay of a few paragraph, like the essay that students have to write for the SAT writing section. Second, there are writing skills on the level of longer writing assignments like a 6-page paper. I develop the first type of writing skills by going over grammar and style as discussed in books like Little Brown Handbook for Writers, Strunk and White’s Elements of style, the Fowlers’ and Joseph Williams’s books on writing. Now, the first two books I’ve listed are high-school level books, and the later two are college-level; therefore, I’m careful to simplify the material from the book to a level appropriate for my student. I will sometimes address the same point of grammar or style several times in a year, each at an appropriate level for the student at that time in the year. I also develop sentence and paragraph-level writing skills by going over grammar questions from the SAT writing section. To develop the writing skills on the level of larger papers, I will help my student with longer papers he or she has to write. Specifically, I will help my student plan the writing process, breaking it down into mutliple drafts, and help my student focus on the ideas before grammar and style. Thus, as you can see, I have extensive qualifications and an effective strategy for tutoring English.